The six layers that govern the lot, and what each one screens.

Heritage

A designated property can still be developed. What changes is who has to say yes, and how early you need to ask.

Screens the real parcel ring against the City's Heritage Register, and the point against the Heritage Conservation District polygons, because a district is a containment question, and a ring that merely touches an edge is not inside it. What it finds is ranked strongest-first: an individual Part IV designation outranks a district, which outranks a listing.

Does notpredict whether consent will be granted, or how long it takes. A district that is under study is not yet a Part V designation, and is described in the future tense.

Conservation & ravine

This is the layer a point query gets wrong. A regulated area that only touches the rear yard still stops you building in the rear yard.

Queries the conservation authority's own regulation limit on the parcel outline, with the City's mirror as a labelled fallback. The ravine by-law is screened separately, because the two are complementary rather than the same control.

Does notsay a permit will issue, or give a timeline. The copy says a permit is generally required, which is what the by-law says.

Rental replacement

It is the constraint most likely to be discovered late, and the one most likely to change what a site is worth.

Matches registered rental buildings to the parcel by coordinates first and normalised address second, deduplicating by registration number so one building cannot flag a parcel twice.

Does notverify unit counts. They are owner-registered, and the copy says “registered as”. A miss is not a clearance: registration starts at three storeys and ten units, while the obligation starts at six units.

Archaeological potential

Cheap to know at the start of a project. Expensive to discover during excavation.

Presence-only screening on the parcel ring, with a hedged note describing what potential means and what assessment would involve.

Does notassess anything, or estimate cost or delay. It fires on a large share of Toronto lots, which is honest, and is exactly why it is presented as screening rather than as a finding.

Secondary plans

Two lots in the same zone can be governed by very different policy. Knowing which document applies is where a planner starts.

Reports membership as policy context: the plan that governs the area, named.

Does notcompute an effect on the envelope. It is context, not a binding control, and is deliberately not styled as a warning.

Park shadow

It decides tall-building proposals downtown, and it is almost never screened before a proposal is drawn.

Casts the graded massing against real City green-space polygons at the tested times and reports net-new shadow on parks within reach.

Does notsay “no net new shadow”. The in-force test is that development adequately limit it, and the engine uses that language. Where coverage is incomplete, it says so rather than implying a clean result.